Last year, Alain Philippon was traveling from the Dominican Republic to Halifax. When arriving at customs control, Canadian Border Services Agency officers found $5,000, traces of cocaine on his bags and two phones.

Officials then demanded that he hand over his smart phone and the password but while he complied with handing the phone over, he wouldn’t reveal his passport to officials and was charged with violating the Customs Act.

Can the CBSA actually demand that a person give them their smart phone password? According to experts, the answer is yes.

Rob Currie, director of the Law and Technology Institute at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, underlines Berger’s point that when someone chooses to cross the Canadian border, their privacy expectation is reduced. As a result, CBSA officers have the right to inspect the goods people carry with them, which includes electronic devices.

The Customs Act states that “. . .every person who is leaving a customs controlled area shall, if requested to do so by an officer. . . present those goods and remove any covering from them, unload any conveyance or open any part of it, or open or unpack any package or container that an officer wishes to examine”.

However, the Canadian Charter states that Canadians have a right to be free of “unreasonable search and seizure”, which means that if CBSA officers right to demand smart phone passwords are challenged, the court could set limitations around CBSA officers abilities to demand them.